The Link Between Psychic Ability, Schizophrenia and Psychosis

It is impossible to do research into psychic ability and psychics without coming across stories of psychosis. And lurking in the background is a connection to schizophrenia, which is far more common in the families of psychic people than in the population at large. In order to address this issue with any sort of expertise though, I needed a source of information which clarified the topic. Well, now I have it. Cognitive psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman, PhD, is a creativity researcher who wrote an article exploring the link between schizophrenia and highly creative people.

We can use the same information for psychic people because this is basically the same group. Kaufman acknowledges as much, although he uses the euphemisms, “magical thinking” and “unusual perceptive experience” to describe psi. It’s annoying, I know. But at least the data is there.

But there are also documented instances of psychics experiencing psychosis, which are not part of that article and I want to address that as well, because it happens to a very certain type of psychic under some very specific circumstances.

Psychosis and schizophrenia are not the same thing. With Psychosis your self control and self awareness will be lower than that of a person with Schizophrenia. The duration for psychosis is between days and weeks and Schizophrenia occurs for lifetime. From a psychic’s standpoint you can think of it this way: Schizophrenia is an ego so out of control it is creating its own reality. Psychosis is the loss of the protective ego.

Psychics do not get schizophrenia, but they can become psychotic. Got that? Good. Let’s address the issue of schizophrenia. (The article is about creativity. I am picking out passages that directly relate to schizophrenia and psychosis. The links in the quoted area were part of the original article.) Dr. Kaufman writes in his article:

In a recent study reported in Schizophrenia Bulletin, Nelson and Rawlings propose that a mild form of schizophrenia called schizotypy may be positively associated with the experience of flow. Schizophrenia is a debilitating mental illness that affects roughly 1 percent of the population and involves altered states of consciousness and “abnormal” perceptual experiences. Schizotypy, which is a watered-down version of schizophrenia, consists of a constellation of personality traits that are evident to some degree in everyone.

High levels of schizotypy are typically found in relatives of individuals with full fledged schizophrenia. Some researchers have proposed that the genes that underlie schizophrenia may remain in the human gene pool because of the benefits those with schizotypy receive in terms of creativity; those with schizotypy have the genes that that may contribute to creativity without the debilitating genes that would prevent them from achieving their maximum potential.

Research confirms a link between schizotypy and creative achievement. In particular, “positive” schizotypal traits such as unusual perceptual experiences and magical beliefs tend to be elevated in artists, and “negative” schizotypal traits such as physical and social anhedonia (a feeling of emotional emptiness) and introversion tend to be associated with mathematical and scientific creativity. (Of course, there are scientists with positive schizotypal traits and artists with negative schizotypal traits — I’m only talking relative numbers.)

He goes on to say:

Consistent with prior research, they found that their sample of artists scored higher than the average population (based on norm data) on the schizotypal traits of unipolar affective disturbance (depression) and thin boundaries, as well as the personality traits of openness to experience and neuroticism.

Interestingly, they didn’t replicate research showing elevated levels of bipolar mood disorder in artists. As a possible explanation, the researchers point out that their sample consists of mainly contemporary artists. As they point out, “creativity is a construct that varies not only across fields, but also across styles and artistic movements.”

hese findings are fascinating and beg the question: What mechanism or set of mechanisms account for the association between schizotypy and the experience of flow? The researchers argue that latent inhibition is of particular relevance to understanding this association (also see “Why Daydreamers Are More Creative“).Reduced latent inhibition represents an inability to screen out from awareness stimuli that have previously been tagged as irrelevant. Prior research has shown an association between reduced latent inhibition and psychosis. However, emeritus Professor David R. Hemsley at King’s College, London argues that while this loosening of expectations based on previous experience may cause a disruption in sense of self, this mental process may also confer advantages for creativity. Recent research showing common genetic and neurotransmitter linkages (particularly dopamine) between both schizophrenia and creativity support this association at a biological level.

As the researchers note, the million dollar question is this: What distinguishes the person who, in the Philosopher Søren Kierkegaard‘s phrase, “drowns in possibility” from the person who is able to use his or her reduced latent inhibition in a way that enables heightened levels of creativity?

The idea that a high IQ factors into the ability of psychic people to cope successfully with traits of schizophrenia is not new. This was also suggested by Dean Radin in his book on the science of parapsychology: “The Conscious Universe.” I am also inclined to add that having a high Emotional IQ is also protective.

Perhaps schizophrenia is the product of a brain that lacks the ordinary capacity to filter information, both physical and at the level of pure consciousness. A schizophrenic perhaps deals with this by unconsciously shutting it all down by creating their very own paranoid world to live in. Fear definitely cuts back on the internal flow of information and that may be its purpose in this situation. Psychics, on the other hand, can and do deal with this information flow from a very early age. Therefore it does not generate the overwhelming fear response and there is no need for the ego to shut everything off.

Psychosis in Psychics

You aren’t psychotic just because you saw a ghost or some other image or had a bad feeling or heard things. Psychosis includes those things, but you have to look at the overall picture.

Psychosis is not an addition to reality, it’s a break from it. If you’re seeing ghosts and they’re talking to you for instance, but otherwise, things are normal, this is probably a psychic experience. An exceptional one, yes, but merely psychic nonetheless. I don’t claim to know all the reasons for why this stuff suddenly occurs, but when I’ve dug into the backgrounds of people who have related these things to me, they were pretty damned psychic to begin with and had other experiences before that were similar at other times in their lives. When I’ve done a bit of peer counseling with these people the main problem was a fear of insanity. When that issue was resolved, it was no longer a problem. A psychotic break is a fear feedback loop that is totally out of control. I would not attempt peer counseling in this situation because serious help and meds are a good idea at this point.

The incidences of psychosis I have read about turned up in situations where individuals were intensely using their psi over long periods of time, typically doing remote viewing; sometimes for years. The people involved were handpicked because they demonstrated exceptional psychic ability and they simply lost their grip on reality.

My opinion on this is that it has to do with how these people perceived authority figures and the idea of authority in general. Most of these people were in service to a government with a strong chain of command; the army for instance. The problem with that is that activities such as remote viewing require a level of self confidence and a sense of self far beyond what these people possessed. In the realm of the inner mind, the normal barriers of the ego and whatever it is in our consciousness that holds reality together disappears and we are open to our most subconscious thoughts, which can manifest as real things in the inner mind. You imagine it, and it’s there instantly. That includes fear, which in turn increases the fear and pretty soon, you have a feedback loop and the resultant psychosis.

The problem is that you only join the army if you believe in authority more than you believe in yourself. And keeping your sanity intact during remote viewing requires that your belief in yourself is stronger than your belief in authority. That is to say, a psychic person who has complete disregard for authority and follows their own path, paying no attention to the counsel of others will be far less likely to cave into any fears that might start developing. They are far better prepared for remote viewing because they can shoo the boogeymen away. The idea of authority is that something external is controlling you, but the inner mind doesn’t work that way. Everything that happens is essentially an inner reflection. Not being afraid of authority is the same thing as not being afraid of monsters under the bed. The ability to deal with one carries over to the other.

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Hi….I just want to say…after alieneating all of my friends because they think I’m crazy…it is great to read this article. I know the visions and the smells and the voices and the Angels I see ARE real. I did not imagine all of this. Jesus has spoken…about a half dozen times I was very small. He has also shown signs that He is protecting. I have walked away from accidents, without a a single broken bone, where most others die, or break even very bone in their bodies. I’ve gone blind and regained my sight. This stuff is real, but no one believes. Even those that swear that they believe in God.

Hi Libby! welcome aboard! there is a lot happening right now energetically more and more peopler waking up and having thiese similar experiences – ascended masters are contacting those who are wanting to connect and move on with love in their hearts – i was taken to host twice for stuff that happened – granted i was not grounded when this occurred so now i’ve taken a long slow road to grounded wellness with heightened awareness and now i llisten to the voices that i hear as guidance – i have to mediate often at the moment to keep well and ground within – there is so many people like us you are NOT alone lovely!!! now is the time!!! look up other things like ascendance, spiritual growth, enlightenment – anything like that you and will find there are many many people out there who talk to angels and many people who channel beings, JC included – just keep going on that path and you will find many welcoming people… i have had to move away from people also who are not in this space… blessings and love to you xxx keep your faith and keep on your oath ask angel to help you and your guiding spirits xxxx

The consideration of people with psychosis or schizophrenia being psychic is probably quite reasonable, but can we really classify these “conditions” as being desirable, when the hallucinations scare the crap out of them? The New Age movement has contaminated society enormously, trying to convince us that many mental health issues are actually just “spiritual gifts”.
Well, if that is so, then it’s a gift I am very happy to do without. I have watched psychosis devastate my son’s life and part-destroy his wishes of being a scientific researcher. When you study at tertiary level (i.e college or university), the LAST thing you want is to have your faculties mashed up by lack of focus, lack of thought power and horrifying visions of evil spirits plus persecuting voices in your head.

Having asked him whether there were any predictions in his hallucinations, he just said that all he could sense was some terrible end for himself. I don’t think he’s ever had anything good or positive come through, it’s always awful. It’s just a never-ending roller-coaster of evil faces, black thoughts and doom-laden events. Just peachy.

I presume the New-Age idea is that these “gifted psychics” will sit around earning their living from tarot cards or crystal ball gazing, while relying on extra money from government handouts to fill in the gaps. Maybe someone can say exactly how these folk are intended to contribute to society in their phased-out state. Creativity is great, but no-one has 100% leisure time available.

I have no issue with people being genuinely empathic or highly sensitive to others’ emotions or to various situations. But these episodes of severe disturbance that undermine daily functioning, like going to work, preparing meals, speaking to others, etc etc cannot in any way be considered a gift or a blessing. The mental conditions have been around for a long, long time…once they were viewed as madness and people were put in asylums…, now there is treatment for the symptoms, to make life more manageable…..or would you rather have these folk in permanent mental pain and anguish?

Hi! i’m sorry to hear about your son, and the hard time he’s been going through. The idea that people who are psychotic could have “gifts” is simplistic. I May well have made that sweep but I think what we’re getting at is that people are perhaps closer at “seeing through the veil” but it depends on what their knowledge base is before these experiences occur. I haace friends that at clairvoyant and they were able to guide me, and I also had done a lot of reading around esoteric subjects, so its not new to me to think that there might be spirits around us – good or bad. On top of knowing what to do if you are being in contact with some such being, there is how you are feeling in yourself. I have the theory that if you are “low”, i.e. have low self esteem in any way shape or form, then any being that wishes you harm might cause you harm, as you have little or no energy to fight it, and may also believe its your own head, if you have no background knoweldge/belief of such entities. If however, like me you were in a very positive place full of energy and feeling empowered, then, when a negative entitiy tries to mess with you, in some way, you have more power to shield yourself, and are stronger with less influence. Again this all sounds simplistic, and its a long way from still making out your son has a gift. However, if he spent some time with a Shaman/clairvoyant/medium etc he may find how to shut down this ESP and not be Bothered by such beings, or decide down the line to use his ability to sense things for the good of others. I think that is why anyone has such abilities. I also think that trying to ignore them does not help! I have found that being on a spiritual path, things have become much clearer for me! good luck to you and your family, I hope your son find someone that can help him to come through with positivity.

One might say it’s similar to possession by horrendously shitty assholes. They say they will have a suicide out of me.

I had grey aliens, ufos, shadow people, a satyr, light being, a ghost, all kinds of stuff appearing to me. At one point they were in my dreams torturing me, at another point they led me to a pyramidal structure in the wilderness and tried to get me to kill myself at the top.

You can see many of my symptoms in movies:(hollywood knows things) the fourth kind, the craft, the golden child, monkeybone, emily rose, the last exorcism, paranormal activity. My disease is all up in the movies.

Torture torture torture, it’s a horrific painfilled bonanza my life. If i don’t poison myself to death they kill me, it sucks.

They have shocked me, burned me, and bent my spine to, it sucks. They are constantly freaking me out.

Im seeing the future, voices are proving they have a conscious cause repeatedly to, they know things sometimes i could not. And then there was the sulfur after seeing the alien.

At one point they were putting foul tastes in my mouth, you can make people taste the most horrible shit ever, all of the senses are in the mind.

And then this one time a black witch even made me visually hallucinate some evil shit. It to was horrible, they don’t tell you these things when you are growing up.

Yeah, im basically just a possessed guy, once again, it fucking sucks and i want out of here.

Hi Pansdiease…so sorry to hear about your suffering. Really sorry. Have you thought about going to see a clairvoyant? medium>healer etc? if you have any faith at all, try praying for someone to come into your life. I’ve done that a lot of times, and see who comes up? But if you are able to, get online or look around you locally and see if you can find someone who can help you – there may be someone who can clear away some of the energies around you – I have the theory that the stronger you are as a person, the harder it is for these things to get to you… i was in a pcych hospital where others were getting hastled a lot by nasty entities, shall we call them that? and i could sense them, but i went in on a high – like super high- and totally felt connected to spirit or light/love whatever you want to call it, and was telling these entities, “come on mother*****S, come and see me, rather than the weaker people” – it really felt like i could protect myself… a way that i was advised to do was imagine a bubble of healing white light around you, so that nothing can get in – just you and your white healing light…hope something in this helps you brother…. sending love to you :)

I was diagnosed with bipolar years ago only had 3 major “high” episodes and all three involved psychic occurrences, now 6 years later, I have faith in my gut instinct that it was all part of my journey and am now in contact with my spirit guide, my inner voice and won’t stray from the path that it guides me to. I hope over the coming years that we who have this knowledge can have strength to spread this knowledge and help others come through this transition time.

Humanity is going through massive change and I feel that this is why there are so many people having these type of “illnesses”: misunderstood by medical science (or oppressed by the people at the top?) more and more people are becoming intuitive as we evolve these parts of our selves but it needs US to help the process, rather than allowing more and more of the population to become subdued by the filth they dish out in hospitals to “help” us!

I think there is technology that simulates psychic. Brain to brain experiments have been successful over the internet recently. However, I think that technology has existed for a very long time.

In some cases it is diagnosed as schizophrenia, however, may have been misdiagnosed as someone was having difficulty figuring out where the “voices” were coming from.

The technology, if it exists, would allow a great deal of control over others. You could simulate being god or satan or guardian angel and guide their actions. That control would be very tempting to some and they would likely fight wars over it.

I’ve been in and out of mental health wards but have had many psychic experiences. When I was in Australia ivwascreturning home to new Zealand and I had voices say don’t fly back Thursday with a picture of a volcano. What happened Thursday was a volcanic eruption. I’ve been diagnosed with schizophrenia but all in all think the most part are my spirit guides giving me experiences some of which I can’t handle. I’ve predicted earthquakes through to train disasters and have had a heap of oobe’s. I’m psychic schizophrenic.

I’m currently “in recovery” from my first “psychotic break” and would like to comment as someone who’s experienced much of these symptoms and more and my brief explanation or insight into this very confusing topic. My diagnosis given to me at a mental health facility which I was admitted to for just over a week is bipolar with psychotic and schizophrenic features. I’m repeatedly told that I have a mental illness and that what happened to me will happen again if left unmedicated, yet my overall experience is largely overlooked and hardly ever listened to by anyone in the medical field with any sort of seriousness, which is difficult and frustrating. Many, and I say almost everyone, has a limit to what they believe is even believable, inasmuch that when the “unbelievable” happens, it’s completely misunderstand by everyone around the person. The term “hallucination” is one I’ve come to loathe in degree, as it’s a catchall word to describe and dismiss extremely unique and rare experiences for that person, and belittles what the experience might have actually been, which I believe to be spiritual in nature to the deepest degree.

My “psychotic break” stemmed from a barrage of spontaneous paranormal events which lasted for about a week. I simply went into a state of shock when I experienced the first absolute occurrence and spiraled and deepened from there. I would say that most people aren’t ready to have their reality ripped and torn apart, which is why it’s unfortunately a unique and rare occurrence I believe. To explain them or describe the experiences is very easy for me to do, but the significance is largely overlooked, let alone taken seriously. For instance: the first event is as follows:

On 12/26/13 I was with two friends and we were starting to play a card game I didn’t know and had never played. I’ll note that I am an avid poker player- I even played full time for a year, and have played part time throughout my life. I know cards, and have a deep history with them. To my story, the girl to my left was the dealer, and laid two rows of three, face down to every player. I looked at one single card in the upper right corner in front of me, and it was the King of Clubs. The dealer said not to look yet, and I put it down, and then she flipped over the top card in the deck, and it was the King of Clubs. I grabbed the card I just looked at, which no one else had seen, and it had changed to a Seven of Clubs. I went into a weird state of shock.

A story as such is very easy to dismiss. What value does it have to you? I’ve come to learn very little it seems. For me, it was the actual pivotal moment where the window to even more impossible things opened from. In that moment I became “crazy” and experienced what I’ve learned is called conversion- “Once patients believe in their delusions with full conviction, they are said to have crossed the threshold to psychosis…” writer Rachel Aviv wrote. There’s simply a point where some people are no longer able to “have a choice” or “believe” in something because they wish it so, but become “crazy” because some of those things are actually real and such experiences aren’t for the masses, but rather for the person who has walked such a path to get to such a point and place to experience something soul shaking and infinitely profound. The stealth at which this “thing” operates is unbelievable- it seemed to personalize my whole experience to be “just what I needed” or “custom made” just for me. Spiritual growth and transformation is a responsibility we all hold and are capable of, yet our culture isn’t very conducive for such growth and acceptance.

What happens if someone breaks through? What would it look like to have an encounter with something of a higher power or energy? How might a person be affected if they actually experience something mystical, magical, paranormal
supernatural, miraculous, etc.- perhaps a little “crazy?” I know I did.

What strikes me first about your comment is that it is extremely well written and coherent from start to finish. You have managed to convey difficult personal events with both brevity and clarity. This is no small feat.

For that reason I’m much inclined to believe you. I get many personal stories from people and rarely are they so well written. You have to be thinking clearly to write clearly.

I’ve often felt that what you’ve experienced at the hands of The System could be avoided with better education on the part of the professionals and more widely available knowledge of what is commonly known as the paranormal.

If we look at reality as a static objective thing, then you will naturally be shocked and horrified when it isn’t. If we look at reality as something that is intimately tied to consciousness, then your experience, although quite rare, is no longer inconceivable. The theory matches reality. A blip in the reality matrix is not impossible anymore.

In the aftermath of my encounters, I’ve taken a lot of time in trying to figure out what I experienced and what going forward in life would mean and look like now. To say it changed my life is an understatement- it changed my reality in ways that I can’t explain and recovering from the trauma has been extremely difficult. That said, it seems the hardest parts are behind me, and I can enjoy a new personal happiness and peace I never thought attainable and even possible in this life from answers gleaned and new found potential. I’ve wondered at length as to my responsibility in sharing my story with others and how best that might be achieved. However, the adage “seeing is believing” is one people and myself would agree with- I’ve just happened to “see” beyond what most people are remotely open to believing. To add, my boldness and honesty about being diagnosed with a mental illness and my stay at a psych ward instantly, by default, makes me lose a lot, if not all, of my credibility. If you don’t already believe in things greater than us, than I unfortunately can’t expect to convince so many others with my tales of the mysterious. I ponder deeply the reason why I might be so “lucky” to have experienced so many miraculous things, and so many others yearn and want just one and it never happens- but who’s saying “wow- I wish I wind up in a mental facility?” Not many.

I would like to try and describe one of the experiences I had and what it led me to and the synchronicity it held. This is one incident that happened to me, and there’s interesting variables to it- such as, I’m fortunate in that there was footage of this entire night that was captured and put on youtube which shows some bizarre things, especially when put into the context of what I experienced that night. This took place in Hilo, Hawaii, on the night of 12/29-30/13. Below is hopefully the video, and at least the link to the time lapsed images from the telescopes on the volcanic summit which overlook Hilo below.

On to my story, let me say that I had experienced “weird” things right before this specific incident. One of which I feel is related in nature, is I saw a “red orb” right before this next incident happened. I was alone, earlier in the night, and it came out from behind something and then expanded, and retracted- like a pulse or breath almost in its rhythm. It was almost like a red lava lamp if you will- but more perfect in form and shape. I observed it for 10 minutes, give or take. It came from “nowhere” and left out of “nowhere.” Shaken up, I went to a friends house and inside their enclosed porch and laid down. As I laid there, I was looking at a window with its curtains fully drawn down, when in the very crack I saw a red light- as bright as a brake light come into the small crack. In the next instance, the curtain was lifted back where I saw a second self luminating red light. Let me note that the curtain covered a window that does not open and the wind did not do it; this thing used “thought” it appeared to open the curtain. Let me say this another way- my hallucination moved matter. It then came into view and the red lights were eyes! Let me be perfectly clear here- its eyes were glowing red like a LED key chain light, but if it were red. I’ve seen lots of animals have light shine at night, and this was completely different- its eyes looked like they were electrically or battery lit. It was the image of an animal- the specifics of which I’ll keep withheld for it was personally significant. I’ll note that it was absolutely huge- unmistakable as to “what” the image was, but larger than anything in our “real” reality. It stared at me for several seconds, the curtain closed, and I was scared beyond belief, but then became excited in a way I can’t describe and went on to experience a good deal more. The time lapse video is interesting and intriguing I find when my bizarre experience and reported phenomena might be taken into context.

On to a synchronicity I found while searching for an answer on things with “glowing eyes” I came across the channeled text, The Law of One by Ra ( http://www.lawofone.info/ ). I searched on the website for “glowing eyes” and it said this…

“9.21 ↥ Questioner: Are they Bigfoot-type creatures?

Ra: I am Ra. This is correct although we would not call these Bigfoot, as they are scarce and are very able to escape detection. The first race is less able to be aware of proximity of other mind/body/spirit complexes, but these beings are very able to escape due to their technological understandings before their incarnations here. These entities of the glowing eyes are those most familiar to your peoples.”

It mentions clearly things with “glowing eyes” which is exactly the best way to describe what I saw. Let me say, I have no clue what that answer statement means inasmuch as any average person- it’s significance to me is simply “glowing eyes.” This is sadly one of the only answers I can find about these “creatures” beyond historical reports and myths. Anyways, within the same search, it showed multiple question and answers, with one answer to a question which seemed like a random non sequitur statement which completely dumbfounded me. It was…

“Ra: I am Ra. The generalities of expression can never be completely correct. However, we may note that when faced with a hole in the curtain, an entity’s eyes may well peer for the first time through the window beyond. This tendency is probable given the possibility/probability vortices active within your space/time and time/space continua at this nexus.”

It literally happened to me- I saw an entity’s eyes (which were glowing with red light) for the first time through a hole in the curtain. Reading such, literally allowed me to accept all the other words of that channeled text with a secure sense of trust and belief. While this isn’t a “plug” for the Law of One- Ra Material, I can say that for me, it has helped with actual answers to some of my experiences, and where before I would not have taken such outlandish text serious. As you can surmise, I’ve had to open up to things I didn’t think were even possible or real, and that’s been difficult, yet rewarding.

In closing, I’m not quite sure what to say. I guess I hope any and all may find this fascinating, and hopefully helpful. People seem so cautious in their pursuit of finding the meaning to life and expanding ones mind to find real answers, that it simply doesn’t happen often. I look at how I got there, and I was damn near suicidal in my attempt to “figure this all out” that I’m surprised and lucky I’m not in jail, seriously injured, or dead. I guess what I’m saying is my “path to enlightenment” went through hell first- and I say that somewhat literally. Me saying “it’s real” isn’t going to change people or the world, because the point is for everyone to go through their own journey of discovery. It is with that journey, I hope this helps.

Five years back i had a minor car accident not hurt which left me badly shaken.but after that night something happened i could see auras around people, things i could see spirits even dieties i had visions.The strangest fact also is that my mother my aunt and uncle have all been diagnosed as schizophrenic.You can imagine then h ow very scared i was when i started experiencing all of this.But the major difference over here is that my mother would say things like i am the queen,people are following me and trying to poison me etcetc.With me it is just that i can see a reality or a dimension which others cannot but otherwise my feet are solid on the ground.

But yes my friends if you are psychic the line is very thin i mean the crossover to schizophreniaThe way i have kept myself sane is

1.Spirituality is linked to being a psychic.Develop a very close relationship with your personal god no matter which religion you belong to.Put up huge pictures of your god in your room talk to them daily,believe in them.Set up a contract with them that if i am surrounded by negative energies i will call out your name and god you have to come to me and help me

2.Try not to go into depression.do not dwell too much on your being psychic.Go get a life.Negative energies are attracted towards people who are in lower consciousness.who are mentally or physically weak .Keep yourself healthy mentally as well as phsyically.Dont think too much.

3. Allways try to be happy dont see horror movies.I have noticed that when i see horror movies these energies are attracted to me.

Negatives energies put thoughts into your mind.They try to control you in this way.Prayer is very important and also positive affirmations.There is a wonderful world outside Go live your life

Hello smita I to was involved in a car accident about four years back was knocked out woke u p with ears ringing like crazy n sirons going off… ringing continued on and off n I still hear it from time to time….ive been diagnosed with psychosis grandfather is skitsophrenic anyways ever since then ive had problems with hearing voices having strange visions sometimes in black n white n sometimes in full color ….. anywho think of it like this you were once jacked into reality n something broke loose in your mind…..our brains operate anywhere from 8 mhz to 15 mhz xc electricity n we absorb light energy through our eyes….your eyes are connected to most your vital organs n well….thats alot of chakra points I predicted I was going to jail the day before it happened through a vision told my friend about the dream seemed different well that day I get stopped for warrants n. Put in jail gave me a wake up call these visions these auditory hallucinations spirit guides are real …. I knew that long before but that confirmed it anyways nice chat lates

When people’s psi apertures start opening up, it can be startling especially since at first impressions are unintended and can consist of premonitions, disasters, death, dead people, plane crashes and they haven’t learned to control the aperture – but you can learn to do so by intent and training. One can learn to meditate and train with remote viewing (IRVA.org) and credible psi training. By all means avoid shrinks, your gift will be considered a symptom of something else; avoid religious fundamentalists they will tell you you are doing the devils work, avoid looney tune alien channels and cult groups and conspiracy theorists. Do develop a meditation practice and ground yourself in nature. Debra Katz has some of the best books on psi technics, safety and uses, You are Psychic the title of one of them. Developing your innate psi skills can be practical and bring many rewards, piece of mind and spiritual development. Trust your own authority . State functional in the mundane, take up creative pursuits, don’t let others manipulate you or think all discarnates or dead people have your best interests at heart, or know more or are more spiritual than you. You always have the ultimate authority for owning your own body and mind, and energy field your spirit/soul is powerful , multi faceted and eternal. Don’t quit your day ob but when you hone your skills there’s nothing unethical for getting paid for your time and work. Practice practice – its your natural birth right, developing that skill takes persistence and work and daring to be different, different is not a bad thing or a slippery slop to insanity. Humor will serve you well.

whilst agree with a lot of what you say I also think that you need to understand how serious and debilitating the illness schizophrenia can be. to suggest that people don’t see shrinks is a bit daft, as you would know if you had any real insight into this.

on this aspect I feel you don’t really know what you’re talking about.

ah ok maybe that’s it then….. it seemed to me, from the email about her comment in my inbox that she was posting about schiz.

however, schizophrenia does indeed start with psychosis, and perhaps whilst not everyone has to have a medication and can get by via therapy etc…. I would think that in the first instance of this, a vist to the shrink is recommended.

or, certainly if the psychosis lasts longer than 6 months, I understand that this could be early onset of schiz.

Hi Jenny, I think the point is that a lot of people are being misdiagnosed with schizophrenia. I agree that schizophrenia is a very serious problem and should be taken seriously. This is addressing the issue that there are people being drugged up and having electrode-shock therapy completely unnecessarily, just because science is a black and white type of discipline with no gray area, and this is THE gray area, because it can’t be explained. It its obvious to me that you, yourself don’t have the psychic ability other wise you would not be commenting in this way. If indeed you are a genuine sufferer of schizophrenia, I wish you a healthy and speedy recovery and good life.

This article is definitely relatable. I have a grand uncle who is a schizophrenic, he been one for years. The process has been gradually eating away the person he use to be. In some ways I would say it’s similar to dementia, but it’s far more devastating. I’ve only really known him for the past ten years or so. It sucks…it sucks for his immediate family where there’s a severe disconnect, and his sister. The man basically lives in his own world. You know and I’ve never really thought about that before. How his perception of life is severely warped and distorted. There are times when he seems relatable and understands his surroundings. After a while it changes…he becomes paranoid and extremely distrustful. Especially in regards to family. There’s a chronic anger and anguish that shows itself every now and then. It’s like he can peep through the key hole, but the door will never open. It’s depressing…

Though positively what I do notice is that he’s pretty trusting of his intuition. He likes to bet and play the lottery. So during our outings he’s always wanting to go and spend on a “itch” he gets. lol Sometimes I think it’s bull, but my uncle actually has a knack for winning the numbers. He’s pretty damn lucky, and very honest in his approach to people. It’s almost child-like the way he follows and perceive’s life.
It makes me glad I didn’t ignore him, and called him crazy. That I try to understand him more.
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Concerning my everyday life…there have been instances where I’ve experienced psychosis. In my teens I was hyper aware almost mystically of my surroundings. There were times when reality just peeled away to reveal an infinite setting that was amazing. My teens were hell. I mean I’ve never experienced anything like that since. I’ve always saw and communicated w/ spirits. Both human and non-human, but nothing prepared me for the events I went through. First of all…since I was super little I’ve been “followed” by Faeries. I don’t mean “Tinker Bell” types, but real Brian Froud/ old world faery tale faeries. The type that makes you wish you’ve never heard of Faeries…There was never a choice or compromise. They were just there end of story…it was like get use to us or not. I think half the time they were around to see how I would react and take their presence. I’m certain bets were made at some point whether I’d loose my shit or not…
For some time I felt cursed and was upset over my fate. lol I felt on occasion I was abnormal, because of what I experienced. See during my childhood I took everything as it came. People watching me while I sleep…sure. I might’ve run screaming, but I survived another day. Weird dreams that traumatized me sure…Sleep walking to mysterious enchanting music, and meeting a hot stranger in moonlight and the dark. Ok. Tried to tell relatives. They didn’t believe or understand, so I was on my own. Eventually I stopped crying, screaming, and being petrified. I got use to it. They didn’t hurt me or anything; as much as stalked and curiously watched/claimed me as some sort of human pet.

I got older and learned to ignore them. I became passive. (not really) Eventually I tuned them out…or at least tried to, and buried my recognition deep. It came back, but I became aware of them differently. It became less terror and more fascinating. During my pre-teens it was magical. I had spirits around protecting and entertaining me. They tried to speak w/ me in a way that I understood. To hear voices, my name being called, or sung was common. To be alone in a room, but not really alone wasn’t uncommon either. My abilities grew. I sensed things more, had OBE’s, levitated a few times, and etc…it was a charming time. Then my teens came and it just unraveled. The trust I had as a kid left and I tried to be more rational. I wanted to be normal. Faeries I realized weren’t always nice. Hell there dangerous and capricious. They can be malicious and still find crap funny. I think my rejection of myself and them caused insult. They were merciless during my teens. They bombarded me w/ psychic attacks from voices, to dreams, to full sightings. I could be doing dishes, or talking w/ a family member and see a lady in white walk insanely fast past a doorway. If I wanted to sleep that was a serious undertaking. Insomnia was a grateful thing then. Sleeping meant visions, dreams, paralysis, and being subject to the touch of a unknown woman who sighed and caressed me at night. She seemed to try and calm me, but it didn’t work. I’d come from work and my room felt abnormally still. Like the air froze. It felt like so many people were there in some other realm, and I’d interrupted. I remember dropping my bag, mechanically grabbing pj’s, and just leaving backwards before carefully shutting the door. Stuff like that sucked…
So over the years nail biting, anxiety, and the fear of the dark have been the issue’s I’ve developed. Naps were followed by mysterious winds, whispering, being tapped until I woke up, or the occasional threat…”I’d make a divine corpse” one said as someone else brutally braided a length of hair physically I didn’t have.

The only times I’ve ever lost control physically was in public, when I walked past this guy in a wheelchair who had a change cup. I just got paid. Coming out of the check cashing place I looked at him sort of and turned to walk away. Then all of a sudden it was like I hit a invisible wall. I froze, something had my shoulder, pulled me back, and turned me around. I was facing the man and he looked as surprised as me. lol
My muscles had seized up and my movement was like a marionette’s. All wrong. I felt my arm go out to offer the man something, but the spirit felt it wasn’t enough. My hand strangely dove into my purse just grabbing whatever it found and stretched out dumping it into the cup. The man was bug eyed, and I was slightly panicking. To not look crazy I didn’t fight it. Just let it happen. Then I ended up smiling at him (sincerely) and the spirit made me bow to him. Disjointed and crap, it raised me up and we walked away. The whole time it had a grip on my shoulder and it’s arm around me. I must’ve looked insane. lol It left me eventually and I felt sooo much lighter. I literally sped walked home. Thinking about it later I felt ashamed…it made me give money, instead of me offering it freely. I felt that was a lesson. Has anyone else went through this? Or at least anything close?

What I loved you pointed out though was that psychics have to have a strong sense of self. That is the truth. To be unanchored at times requires maneuverability, and the belief you’ll be fine. You have to bring yourself back from certain depths. In order to do that one’s mind has to be clear and strong. I’ve learned so far that I have a very disciplined and strong will. No matter what goes down I can pick myself up, and go on w/o any troubles. People in general depend on the authorities to know what’s best for them. I have to know what’s best for me, and how I handle a situation. Especially since most of this is an inner battle, not an outer one. I may not be disciplined about my life in general, but psychic discipline is something I’m building everyday. I want to be able to stand in the eye of the storm w/o a ruffle and come out whole. Thanks for the article.

I don’t know, if “psychic abilities” are anything more than glorified intuition. From reading this though I get the impression that those who suffer any mental disorder should stay away from such topics, and the drug-addicted false friends running rampant there. Getting back to health should be more important than any “paranormal bullshit”, as that health part matters in reality, and for the security of us fellow humans. While I wrote this “Medium” was running on TV, and I don’t need to graduate in psychology, or psychiatry, to see another example-psychic who neglects her children, is an abusive personality to her husband, and a pest to anybody else. Real psychics are never narcissist, as that is extrovert, where psychics are introvert. Schizophrenia, as a topic, is often giving me the impression that it is not properly analyzed & defined. A sad thing, as it is 2014, and I know such shallow blabbing about it since 1994.

Hi Craig. i was just wondering if you have looked into any research on bloodtypes. Would it be possible that phsycic ability can be manifested by childhood trauma. If bloodtype is a factor in this ability would this be the real reason for the newborn heel prick to determine who is hand picked and subsiceuntley handled through out life. To know of a persons ability at birth and then mis informing those individuals through out life is a violation of all human rights. To live a life were your emotions are constantley toyed with and minipulated for purpouses unknown to the individual is a form if abuse. How does the individuals deal with this.

Could i ask how it is you know that a psychic cannot become schizophrenic? and also, whether you think a schizophrenic can become psychic?

I should say that I am diagnosed wtih schiz-affective disorder and since i found a medication that works brilliantly by preventing my brain from over producing a chemical called dopamine, i believe i have found that i am a tad psychic, but also medium. I may not be the most brilliant psychic and medium that existed but i do definitely believe that i am able.

i will say here that i have taken a step back from doing psychic and spirit readings as i am questioning on whether it might upset the chemical balance in my brain, since having the odd wobbly patch here and there. i feel this is best practice for now until i have researched this subject area more thoroughly, hence me finding your blog.

also Craig, i was once told by a professional medium that she had been part of a scientific experiment where they tested the level of dopamine in her brain before and after a spirit reading. it was found that her dopamine levels were higher after reading. this might suggest that we produce more dopamine when our minds work in certain ways like this. which is interesting because my psychiatrist also told me that when they tested people with schizophrenia, it was generally found that they had higher than normal levels of dopamine in their brains.

i am very lucky that the med. i take sorts out most, if not all of my schiz symptoms most of the time.

i have heard that people with mental health issues cant be psychic or that spirit will not work with these people. i have also read that some think its dangerous to try. one lady thinks its very unethical and bad practice to ever teach a schizophrenic person reading techniques etc. i have to say that i understand this for some people. but as you can imagine, i also find it frustrating that us schizophrenics are spoken about as though we are all the same person, in that it is not noted that we are all individuals, that is to say for example, that at least one of us is indeed psychic as well as medium. the other frustraing thing for me personally is that people automatically assume that my beliefs in my psychic/medium ability is a symptom of my illness and that i must be away with the fairies.

oh yes, it is a lonely planet indeed.

so i would appreciate your reply to my questions at the top of these my comments.

Hi,
Thanks for sharing that bit about your life. I hope that others find it useful and informative. I’m especially glad that you’ve found meds that work for you. Not everyone is so fortunate.

When I write about the various connections that psi has to mental disorders, there is a lot that isn’t known and the connections themselves aren’t well understood. The most I can do is speculate and I do make it clear in my posts that this is what I am doing. That is my answer to your questions.

There is however, quite a bit that is known about schizophrenia. It’s not a mental health issue like depression, that can often be traced to external factors, but rather people are born being “at risk.” Far more men develop schizophrenia than women.

hi Craig, I am the person that you are replying to. As you can see, I now have a name :) Thank you for your reply. its very much appreciated.

I read the report of a study that was made of people that have schizophrenia and it concluded that there is a much higher incidence of child sexual abuse during their childhoods, than average. i should also say that there is some contention around this subject, and that not everyone would agree with this conclusion. however it does seem to be fairly widely thought that childhood trauma can be a factor in determining whether you will go on to develop an illness like schiz later in life. – i thought i would mention this as i think its important in relation to your above comment about people being born ‘at risk’.

it is well known that if you have suffered child abuse, then you are at higher risk of mental health illness later on in life. it may well be (likely) that schizophrenia is no different

i dont understand how you can be born at risk. i think its more likely, as is the thinking in some camps, that other influences beyond our control as we are growing up are more likely to make us at risk. Craig i would be very grateful if you could back up your claim about people being BORN more at risk of developing schiz. by posting a link to the study/report etc. where this is explained. i have to say i find it very hard to imagine how this can be proved or what evidence can possibly be produced to back this up as fact. i imagine that its not actually fact, but merely a theory.

i think its also very very important to point out that there are very few mental health ‘labels’ for a great many people. its not surprising then that we think, feel, react, and behave very differently to eachother to different stimuli and different meds despite having the same label. for example, it is quite clear that just like some depressed people, that some schizophrenic people just need the levels of a chemcial adjusted in their brain to become well again. just as clinical depression is treated by adjusting a different set of chemicals. so when you say that depression is down to external factors, this is not actually always the case…… since there is a type of depression that is purely down to brain chemicals.

to me, it seems obvious that some schiz people just need the level of a chemical occurring in their brain adjusted, to feel well, whereas this kind of treatment is useless to another person with exactly the same label. this implies to me that we are actually dealing with very different conditions with the same label.

hmmm you mention a lot is known about schizophrenia, it actually appears to me that most people know very little about it….. you may know 100 schizophrenic people, but that certainly does not mean you know them all or know all about schizophrenia. the chances are you will not know the schizophrenic people like myself, or rather you won’t know that they are schizophrenic in the first place because they appear and ARE in fact very very normal. so normal, you could never tell.

thanks once again for your reply and BRAVO for posting this article Craig. i’m glad this is being talked about. cheers.

in a nutshell, lol, (after brining all sorts of stuff into the discussion that might not immediately seem relevant to your article craig) i spose the reason i am contributing all of this is, is that because of the expereinces i have described, i am actually of the opinion that you can be schizophrenice and psychic too. in fact, you can also be both schizophrenic and clairvoyant as well.

hmmm i could prattle away for ages on this one lol

but instead of taking over the whole comments board, i will get myself some shut eye as i have work in the morning…..

btw Craig, just to add, i re-read your reply and see that you were not saying that all depression is down to external factors, only some. apologies if i have not taken in your reply as fully as i should have in my haste to comment myself.

I see a strange correlation between mood and technology. Society has advanced its technology to the point where the weaker minded individual cannot handle it. What I have observed in people whom tend to indulge in modern technology for the purpose of social media share a common trait; depression. Here’s how this works.

A new generation (referred to as generation z I believe) was formed around 2000. This era was the most revolutionary time in all of history in terms of technological advancement. People can’t even see the blatant truth in front of them, that their lives have been transformed without them even realizing it. How can they not realize that their life has been altered? Simple: humans adapt. We have adapted to a new form of communication; the cellular telephone. In this new generation, the cell phone was introduced at a time which we were still developing. We were developing to current standards based off of what our parents experienced. Essentially many people are connected to a web that becomes their own reality. Facebook, Twitter, and text messaging are their world. Their perspective of what a friend is is different from older people because older people embraced face to face conversation. This new generation is a transitional one; not progressive, the opposite. Actually, who knows where we are headed to?

We have lost cultural norms and values because technology allows us to perform tasks that were once done by hand. Perhaps it is this absence of culture in an individual that spawns feelings of emptiness associated with depression. The cure for our society’s depression is so simple that it is shocking.

We turned to our phones to experience something new, technology that never existed before. Pretty soon we adapt to it and it becomes our universal way of functioning. As a result our social skills are potentially absent or weak, which isolates an individual from others. The need for acceptance is not filled, therefore causing depressive symptoms. If we can redirect people’s perspectives of their place in the world through the usage of modern technology we can and depression and other similar disorders.

Depression existed long before technology advanced so quickly. It is the inability to appreciate the beauty in life because the ugliness overwhelms the soul. Sometimes it lasts for a short time and sometimes it lasts for very longer periods of time. I don’t judge it. I have always loved technology, although I realize that we have to learn to be careful with it. For example, many scientists were opposed to the creation of nuclear power plants, clearly understanding their danger. So there is a balance that needs to come into place and it will take maturity and a lack of greed to get us there. I can live with the internet and I can live without the internet. But I certainly enjoy it. It has added so much to my life. I love being able to expand my collection of music. Before the internet, it took forever for me to find music that I loved. I love being able to google information. Recipes, how to care for my cats, how to treat basic illnesses, the latest in treatments for Hepatitis C, keeping in easy contact with friends I’ve made overseas, checking daily to see where my favorite art works are being displayed and where my favorite musicians are playing. All of this being said, know that I have reveled in living without technology. I lived on the beach in Tulum in a palapa made of sticks and grass with very little protection from the elements and with no electricity and no running water. It was a delight. But so is waking up in the morning and speaking with friends who live far away and who I met via the internet. And I love making YouTube videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCxDv1wE-qs

Kind of surprised to find this sort of article on this kind of blog. To me corrupt psychiatry (I think there is a form of rational, benevolent psychiatry) are almost identical to the corrupt monks and Spanish Inquisition in the film “The Name of the Rose” (Sean Connery, based on the Umberto Eco novel). In the film the corrupt head monk rails against various evils, then we find that he secretly reads books about these “unholy subjects” in his secret library, The Tower (psychiatrists reading “occult” books?). He even poisons the pages to kill younger monks who he is manipulating with privileged access to that knowledge. Prozac ? ( ref: http://drugawareness.org ). I have seen very dark things going on in the Psychiatric system. It’s a cult of violence and glorifies cruelty – drugs designed to destroy, electroshock “therapy”. Many psychiatrists are straight out of Babylon 5 – Psi Cop ! When I was suffering from serious trauma from being in an abusive relationship I was in serious pain and needed help and understanding. Instead my pain was pathologised into a disease, and my abuser was left to get away with it. I met other people in this position.

“That is to say, a psychic person who has complete disregard for authority and follows their own path, paying no attention to the counsel of others will be far less likely to cave into any fears that might start developing.”

You talk of authority and yet you seem to exhibit the same worship of Psychiatrists as “Gods of reality”. It was Terrence McKenna who said it best. When Science can’t explain something they dump it in the Psychiatry field never to be seen again. More so, not all authority is bad. There is something called a Good authority …. good policemen, judges or a fair boss at work. I think we need to pay attention to the counsel of others, but I think I see what you are getting at … the oft heard one in the face of inexplicable phenomena … “he’s going round the bend” .. not helpful !

So, I wonder if you have looked very deeply into this field ? What I found is a psychiatry used for political and ideological purposes. I was campaigning with a human rights organisation until I found that they were a front for Scientology. Scientology appears to have been set up by the pharmaceutical companies, and by the Science Cult, or Scientism (ideological science) to deflect criticism from the pharmaceutical companies and psychiatry. Psychiatry is used to control people who they think might draw attention to the abuses in the name of Science. Animal experimentation, and human experimentation .. remember MkUltra ? Humans are experimented on in psychiatric institutions .. I’ve seen it first hand.

But of course none of what I’m saying can be true, because I’ve had contact with Psychiatry and so “I must have a mental illness”. This is exactly what they used to do to dissidents in the former Soviet Union. I’m not sure you realise how deceptive and corrupted this area is. However, saying that, there are psychiatrists out there with their heads a bit more screwed on.

I agree with most of what you say. But I think scientology is separate from the pharmaceutical companies. Scientology is an extremely destructive cult that preys on people by acknowledging certain truths and then totally perverting those truths. Alex Jones is another creep who operates in the same manner. Right wingers do this too.

I majored in psychology when I first entered college in 1980 and was very disappointed with the field. It seemed shallow and didn’t recognize that the corruption of a society had an impact on a person’s discomfort and pain. But I did have one reasonable teacher who had us read the book, “Schizophrenia: Mental Diagnosis or Moral Verdict.” Although I do think much of mental illness can be biochemical or physical in nature, I also think that those who go up against a corrupt society can be easily diagnosed by inept psychiatrists and psychologists as mentally ill and lacking in intelligence. Most doctors, in general, have superiority complexes.

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” – Jiddu Krishnamurti

Wow Elizabeth ! Just the direction my thinking was moving toward. I have references to research that shows that the “diagnosis” of so called Schizophrenia has been shown to be almost non-existent in tribal societies that were studied. This appears to be due to, on the most part, lack of cruel and deceptive behaviour. I have been getting many examples recently of deceptive behaviour. For example, internet bullying. I had one example recently. At the video game sites I frequent some people give out what I suspect to be deliberately deceptive information about some video games on the PC. This led me to doing stressful technical procedures that turned out to be completely unnecessary. This is only one example of this kind of thing. There are other examples that I’m sure I’ve never identified. As Weiler identifies, our subconscious can pick up on these factors that the conscious, intellectual mind cannot always identify. The bad feeling that warns us. I think Weiler is right about psychic activity being the ability to access that information, or at least see the feelings as real and act upon them.

Now Scientology. I started to take seriously connections between Scientology, Psychiatry and the pharmaceutical companies when I discovered information in the book “Storming Heaven, LSD and the American Dream” (Jay Stevens). Did you know that Hubbard funded studies by Psychiatrists ? He was also a very rich man by the sound of it. I know this alone does not prove the connection, but I’ve seen lots of other evidence. I do not believe that Scientology is “anti-psychiatry”. It’s all very convenient, and the number of times I have seen claims of someone being a Scientologist block discussion of these issues. There is a lot of money to be made in pharmaceuticals and I would not put it past some of these industrialist and marketing men to have set up mechanisms to discredit campaigners.

Right wingers. Left wingers do it as well. But I guess it depends on where your politics is.

Some of society is corrupt. Some of society is sick, but I’m not sure if it’s profoundly sick as Jiddu Krishnamurti says. Reich called it the emotional plague, but there are many well adjusted people out there.

A perfect example of abusive behavior and the support of abusive behavior is the murder of Trayvon Martin. I played close attention to the case, including information that didn’t come out in the trial that should have come out and could have legally been presented. I watched as the defense shopped for a jury, chose undereducated, racist women who he could “school,” tired out the jury, presented “witnesses” that “experts” that were neither and had a history of violence (both legal and illegal), provoked, before and during the trial, the key witness who was on the phone with Trayvon moments before his murder, and discredited her by committing fraud. And during the trial and during deliberations, there was jury tampering. And to watch the MSM justify it all. We’ll see if the Department of Justice does anything about it. It is within their power. This is one of the aspects of our society that make it profoundly sick.

Sounds like a lot of bad thinking and knee jerk reactions from both sides. This is exactly the inability to think that is encouraged by the “skeptics”, and the more naive psychic groups, although the better one’s in those groups actually promote genuine critical thinking skills (rules of logic, logical fallacies and so forth). I refuse to polarise. I take both sides, and neither side.

Although I have compassion for George Zimmerman because he was abused as a child in many forms and fashions (and his brother sexually abused him), and although I don’t believe in punishments for crime, but therapy and compassion instead, it is clear to me that George went out hunting for Trayvon Martin, who he knew of beforehand, and spun a web of deceit to get certain people to support him. George continues to abuse those around him. Yes, if Trayvon had submitted to George, his death would not have occurred. Oftentimes, we have to submit to those who wish to dominate us in order to get through a certain situation. But I don’t blame Trayvon. It is clear to me that George approached him and drew his gun immediately. The fight ensued because Trayvon was afraid (he was a teenager being unjustly pursued by a violent man hopped up on drugs and alcohol – and Trayvon fought for his life. If he had just let George hold the gun on him and said, “How can I help you?” it would have calmed George and jarred him from his delusions. I’ve done this many times when violence breaks out. I truly feel like I want to help the other person, no matter how big his transgressions. I have no fear. George Zimmerman is a profoundly sick man. Many can’t see that because he appears “well adjusted” and is able to manipulate a profoundly sick society. We won’t discuss the racism aspect of the case. That usually goes over the heads of many non-black people and black people who have been corrupted. I say all of this not in anger, but in truth. I feel no anger about all of this. Only compassion for a profoundly sick society. How can I be angry when, ultimately, those who harm others are harming themselves.

P.S. I’ve always been comfortable with my psychic abilities and I don’t have the ability to hear voices or see energy/spirits.

Elizabeth Faraone

February 4, 2014

I didn’t know that Hubbard funded studies. I was aware that the chairman of the Psychology Department at the college I went to in the early 80s was into EST. I think the connection between psychology, psychiatry and cults is an innocent one and has more to do with curiosity and naivete.

ihave psychosis going on 4years …i live with it everyday voices non stop….voices tell me things i dont already know,definitions for example ive had flash visions on rare occasions of car accidents,people moving out n so forth…since the car accident alot has changed…i hear music as if i had headphones on….i can make up my own beats n so forth n its like i hear it outside myself…sometimes the music is so unreal,mind boggling…im into art ironically in the car accident i also developed tinnitus n ive always had ADD came across some info saying i could have hyperacusis as well but that hasnt been proven…im looking for answers u seem to have em if you have any questions feel free to add me to facebook….email is combatarmsinc use that to find me,names matt hope to hear from u l8s

I am not sure if I am psychic but I definitely had a psychotic break about a year ago. I’m still having symptoms and I’m still on medication as of the past six months so and I”m really sad. I’ve gained 30 lbs, developed akathesia which is like a restlessless, and developed insomnia. When I was in psychosis I thought I was telepathic and I thought I could talk to spirits. I also thought that the spirits were teaching me about survival and how to live in a commune and all sorts of other things. I’m hoping once I get off of the medication I can learn to control my symptoms but who knows. I’m really scared and am contemplating suicide if I can’t live off medication within a year.
Any thoughts other than dont commit suicide?

Hi Heather,
All I can do is tell you what I know: We are stronger than we think we are. There is always a way to dig deeper and try harder even when we think we’re at our limit.

Psychosis usually comes about as a result of stress from somewhere and it’s a coping mechanism. If you want to go without medication you’re going to have to learn to be tougher and face whatever it is that is causing your stress and work through it until you have confidence that you can confront your fears without getting overwhelmed. Once you believe that you can live with your fears without succumbing to them, you’ll have no need to retreat into psychosis. It’s all about managing your fear.

I had a psychosis experience many years ago. I cannot speak for others but can speak for myself when I say that it is possible to overcome psychosis. Please do NOT give up. I survived my crisis. What did I do? Well, for awhile, I took medications and there were bad side effects of that but I kept going with the medications for awhile but then also I combined that with high dosage multivitamins and over time I tapered off the medications in order to avoid the bad side effects I was having— of note, the multivitamins I was taking were high dosage, for example, I was getting 300% and 500% or more of the daily RDA. [i.e. multivitamins that had all of the necessary vitamins and minerals]. ALSO in addition to taking multivitamins I took extra niacin supplements and I drank a lot of water, such as 8 glasses per day of distilled water (I did not drink tap water because at some places there is a metallic taste in the tap water and I surmised that the presence of even slight amounts of metal might be causing my nervous system to have problems). It is true that multivitamins include niacin but what I’m saying is that I took the multivitamins AND took additional niacin supplements. Please read the work of Dr. Abram Hoffer and it will explain everything. Guess what? I did all of this and over time the psychosis symptoms went away [it did not take long]. That was over 20 years ago. I have been free of bad psychosis/voices symptoms for over 20 years now. I completely healed. I have not taken medication for over 20 years. These days I just keep up a healthy routine and I take multivitamins like everybody else and that’s it. Of note, there have been periods of stress in my life and in fact I’m going through a stressful time now but thank God –there is no psychosis/there are no voices. Please do not give up. You can get through this. You can survive just like I did.

My experiences of psychosis were intertwined with a latent sensitivity to “subtle” energy as well as other types of energy (including microwave and electromagnetic emissions). Having sorted out my issues of psychosis as being my inability to comprehend and contextualize the various signs of being psychic, coupled with early childhood truama. I have used medication and therapy to deal with the immediate onset of an increase in my sensitivities. I’ve also correlated that the “inner critic” and other such voices that create internal conflicts can be best addressed by a combination of anti-psychotics, anti-depressants and intense therapy (both individual and group). Once you “clear” out the confusion and resulting chaos that occurs as a result of failing to have a scientific framework to contextualize your psychic abilities, you begin to put the pieces together into a larger framework of what “reality” is based on.

To all intense and purposes, those who are psychic are much more susceptible to destabilizing and misinterpreting reality.To some extent, there is a lot of psuedo-scientific explanations that don’t have any foundation. For instance some psychics try their best to interpret all kinds of phenomena using gnosis rather than the scientific method. It’s typically very hard, since psychic experiences don’t lend themselves easily to analysis. However there are some tools and methods that do point in a general direction (such as dowsing tools). The problem is people go off on tangents and end up leaning towards the idea of possession, evil spirits, etc., when in fact there are very clear indications that a person is having a “flashback” and somatically experiencing a ptate of psychosis that regresses them back to an earlier experience that may or may not be a memory they can connect with. It may even have been vicarious traumatization, making it that much harder to figure out “all your relations” and connections to the underlying cause of your “voices” and energetic blockages.

Religion is no better at helping psychics who face internal “voices” from discerning what is real. One has to just pick up the Bible to go completely off the deep end with all the crazy stuff that can be misinterpreted from that book. There are many stories of possession and the like in there, and trying to read the Book of Revelations while in a “flashback” will just make things completely confusing.

Generally speaking, having somebody tell you that you just need to pray and put your faith in Jesus, Budha, Baha’u’llah or some other representative of God won’t make you more “sane”. You could literally believe in aliens and abductions and it wouldn’t help you overcome the confusion that comes from not being able to tell what is real and what is not, especially when you feel you are the only one hearing the messages (hidden or otherwise) that are coming at you from your own psyche.

A coherent, universal foundation for all reality does exist though. One that has helped me to contextualize all the various epistemologies of this fractured reality we call “modern” society.

This reality is the Baha’i Faith. Sad to say, they haven’t gone around and offered their reality as a solution for schizophrenia, but I must say it does provide you with a grounding in a reality that claims to be “real”, above all the other interpretations (such a Christianity, Budhism, Islam, and the pseudo religious cults that are everywhere).

However, that’s not the real issue. The real issue is that being psychic is not easy. Once you start dealing with all the various trauma’s and issues that you’ve accumulated throughout your life and develop a more aware “ego” that can differentiate between various realities, even while experiencing information or sensitivities that the majority of people don’t experience, you begin to piece together a more fluid and cohesive reality that encompasses the dichotomy of how our current reality that we live in a world that is totally “out of balancewith God’s laws, whilst realizing that you are also on a journey of self-discovery and growth.

Psychic’s used to have a position in the fabric of a society that relied on them to foresee the future, bringing healing back to the tribe after a journey of self-discover. In today’s society “Shaman’s” are a dime a dozen though. Just watch Oprah Winfrey, and you’ll realize that everybody is putting out their “shingle” (ahem Dr. Phil), and trying to convince people to purchase their “solution” for all their troubles.

Psychic abilities are real. They allow you to dowse for water, to use radionics equipment to create homeopathic treatments, or perhaps to heal somebody using your hands. You only have to pick up an Egely wheel from some online store to realize that we all have some telekinetic ability, and that it’s just a matter of developing it (like using Chi Kung meditation techniques). The bottom line is that psychic abilities aren’t very “functional” in a world that relies on your ability to use technology or serve customers.

It can be useful if you develop it to the point where you can predict stock market flows, or perhaps predict lottery numbers. As we all know, unless theirs a practical use for it, it will continue to be a latent ability that surfaces every now and then for 0.3-0.7 of the populations (that’s the prevalence of schizophrenia in the population), and create havoc for those unfortunate and unable to stabilize.

The key thing is that society lacks a unified theory of reality, and that fact along with a total lack of funding for researching the extent to which schizophrenics are psychic just makes the problem one big billion dollar windfall for the drug companies and the many psychiatrists who welcome the chance to diagnose yet another patient. It’s a bit of a big scam that won’t go away.

In reading “PSI, Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain” by Sheila Ostrander & Lynn Schroeder, I’m reminded that the western view of mental illness relies solely on the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Illness). In doing so, the vary questions that they use to define schizophrenia are the vary ones that would be used to help define whether you were having a psychic experience.

For instance, having healing hands, often related to Reiki and other such “subtle energy” healing, causes your hands to tingle. Also, you can sense or feel the energy of various objects. Not just in your hands, but often at the various Chakra centres, especially in your chest, throat and between your eyebrows.

A psychiatrist trained in western medicine would diagnose your sensitivities as hallucinations. An accupuncturist or doctor of Chinese Medicine would tell you that you are able to sense “chi” (or Qi).

Which one is telling the truth?

Well…it get’s complicated when you say that you are also hearing “voices” in your head that you believe link you telepathically with other human beings.

So, the answer is yes and yes. Yes, you are having a psychotic episode, and yes you are also trying to understand that you are a psychic. Very often the two go hand in hand. But without a cohesive and integrated view of what all the phenomena you are experiencing are related to, you simply star making “assumptions” that you are telepathic, when the reality is that your mind internalize many different experience and memories (some somatically and other fractured from trauma) and then formed an internal voice (see Hal Stone – Embracing ourselves), or voices, and it is now your “shamanic” duty to interact and confront all these emergent conflicts.

It’s sounds better when I say that you are literally thrown into this world, injest a whole bunch of stuff, and then one day have to have a crisis in order to work out what you injested. And in the presence of being psychic, it’s a very difficult task to accomplish. Surviving schizophrenia is one thing, but we have no tribe to bring our story back to in order to heal. The hard one knowledge of how to stay grounded and deal with these breaks doesn’t get honoured in the same way that for instance cancer survivors are honored and respected in society.

Now, onto the question of whether or not western thought has the “right” view on the issue of schizophrenia. The west prides itself on having invented drugs to help people with schizophenia “function” in society. As with everything, it’s very short sighted and focused on results, rather than on truly looking at quality of life outcomes. A person who’s so doped up on Seroquel, Risperidone, Halidol, or some other such anti-depressant/anti-psychotic doesn’t really mean that we have “healed” the people who suffer with this mental illness. It’s just a way to manage their symptoms. The problem is that they medications themselves have so many side effects that we really can’t expect many of them to function well. It’s like creating a zombie. What use do they have to society when they can’t even get out of bed because the med’s make them so tired all the time. Might as well go back to lobotomizing (which by the way wasn’t that long ago…wink wink).

Anyways….the reality is that very few people will be able to extract themselves from the medical industrial complex that matches and dispatches people along the drug companies well articulated “pathways of care” towards rehabilitation. I mean, how many Psychiatrist really sit down and talk to their patients. An what new “amazingly effective” models of care have they come up with for counselling people who are confused. CBT, Gestalt, Narrative, Satir Family Therapy, Somatic, Solution Focused….all these have been proven by research to be no better than just leaving the person alone. So what solutions does medical science currently have to help a latent psychic person who periodically experiences psychosis coupled with psychic sensitivities?

Well, the answer is very little. But, what we do know is that medication will temporarily solve one problem. Stabilization. And therapy can help clear out the crap from the past and focus on rehabilitating all the trauma from the experience.

In summary and to help you understand more fully the dilemma that we face, I’ve chosen to include the key questions used by Psychiatrist to define whether you are experiencing a psychotic break (These come from the “Interview Guide for Evaluating DSM-IV Psychiatric Disorders and the Mental Status Examination” by Dr. Mark Zimmerman).

It’s important to note that for several of the questions, especially the one’s on hallucinations, you would not be able to differentiate between a psychic and schizophrenic, especially if they couldn’t figure out what they were experiencing.

I very much doubt that drug companies would want those questions changed to things like: Have you ever experienced a tingling in your hands when you put your hands over somebody? Followed by an analysis with a spectrometer or some other scientific device to find out if they possessed healing hands (ironically called “Therapuetic Touch” by nurses in hospitals).

We have a long way to go before the medical community, and specifically the College of Physicians, and the more importantly the curriculum in local universities where doctors study is changed to include information about psychic phenonmena.

I’ll close with one caviat. I was in a Psychiatrist’s office not long ago, and I explained my history of trauma…and his response was that I had “false memories”. Amazing that a man can study at school for 10 years, get a degree to practice medicine. Diagnose people, and yet still have such idiotic ideas about how trauma effects the brain. :)

And now here is the information about schizophrenia in the West:

Please note that the DSM-IV defines schizophrenia as only needing two of the following features for at least one month: delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, grossly disorganized or catatonic behaviour, and negative symptoms. Only one of these features is required if the delusions are bizarre, OR if there are auditory hallucinations consisting of a voice keeping a running commentary on the person’s behaviour or thoughts, OR two or more voices conversing with each other. Here are the various questions that are asked in each category:

ASSESSING DELUSIONS AND HALLUCINATIONS

Delusions of reference:
==================

When watching TV, listening to the radio, or reading the paper do you notice that they are referring to you, or that there are special messages intended specifically for you? IF YES: What have you noticed?

Does it seem like strangers on the street are taking special notice of you or talking about you? IF YES: Is it a feeling you have, or are you pretty sure that they are talking about/referring to you? IF PRETTY SURE: How do you know?

Do things seem especially arranged for you? IF YES: In what way?

Delusions of persecution:
===================

Is anybody against you, following you, giving you a hard time, or trying to hurt you? IF YES: Tell me about that

Do you feel like there’s a plot to hurt you? IF YES: Who’s involved? Why would they want to hurt you?

Thought broadcasting
=================

Do you ever think of something so strongly that people could hear your thoughts? IF YES: So, people can hear what you are thinking even when you’re not talking? How do you know?

Delusions of mind reading:
====================

Are people able to read your mind and know what you’re thinking? IF YES: How can you do this? Can anyone do it, or just some people? Who? Do they literally read your thoughts, or do they read you facial expression to know what you’re thinking?

Thought withdrawal:
===============

Are your thoughts ever taken out of your head? IF DOESN’T UNDERSTAND QUESTION: Does someone or some force reach into your head and steal or remove your thoughts? IF YES TO EITHER QUESTION: Tell me about it.

Thought insertion:
==============

Are there ever thoughts in your head that have been put in there from the outside? IF YES: Tell me about it. (I’m not referring to talking to someone who makes a suggestion or gives you advice. Instead I’m referring to thoughts getting inserted into your head from the outside. Does this every happen?)

Delusions of guilt:
=============

Do you think you’ve done something terrible and deserve to be punished? IF YES: I know it will be hard to talk about, but what do you feel so guilty about?

Do you blame yourself for bad things going on in the world like wars, crime, starvation, etc?

Delusions of grandiosity:
==================

What was your self-esteem like during this time?

Did you feel more self-confident that usual?

Did you think you had special talents, abilities, or powers? IF YES: Like what?

When some people feel [HIGH, EUPHORIC, etc] they may think they’re going to become famous or do great things. Did you have any thoughts like that? IF YES: Like what?

Delusion of control:
===============

Do you ever get the feeling that you’re being controlled by some force or power from the outside? IF YES: What’s that like? At times does it seem like you’re not in control of your body, almost like you’re a puppet and something from the outside pulls the strings? IF YES: So, at times your body does certain things without your willing it? IF YES: If I asked you to raise your hand or stand up now would you be able to do it? IF NO: Why is that? IF YES: So, you’re in control of your actions? Are you always in control?

Somatic delusion:
=============

Are you concerned that you have a serious physical illness that a doctor hasn’t found, or that something is wrong with your body? IF YES: What do you think is wrong? Why do you think that? Are you sure?

HALLUCINATIONS

Visual hallucinations:
================

Have you seen visions or other things that other people didn’t see? IF YES: What did you see? What time of the day did this occur? How long ago did it start? Do you see it every day? How often do you see it?

Auditory hallucinations:
==================

Have you heard noises, or sounds, or voices that other people didn’t hear? IF YES: What did you hear? Do the voices seem to come from inside or outside your head? IF INSIDE: But you hear it with your ears? How many voices do you hear? Are they male or female? Do you recognize them? Do you ever hear two or more voices talking to each other? How long ago did the voices start? Do you hear them every day? How often during the day do you hear them? Do they influence your behaviour? Do they tell you to do things? Do the voices ever talk about what you’re doing or thinking? IF YES: Do they ever keep up a running commentary on what you’re doing or thinking just like a sports announcer describes a ballgame?

Tactile hallucinations:
=================

Do you ever notice strange sensations in your body or on your skin?

Do you ever feel something creeping or crawling on your body, or something push or punch you but no one is there? IF YES: Like what? When did it happen the first time? How often has it happened?

What about smells that other people don’t notice, or strange tastes in your mouth? IF YES: Like what? When did it happen the first time? How often has it happened? Are they associated with any other physical symptoms like an upset stomach, numbness, tingling, or brief memory loss? IF YES: Tell me about that.

Ann some qutston what if your deaf and can not understand.the voices and you cry the voives get so load its alfew being deaf and hearing thes seeing showders go by before my meds it was jesus and he was 777 to my i used that but still saw demons angels but i closed pretend windows to keep the mean demons from my family

I have a history of severe trauma. I also have experiences that I have been told are psychic. However, a recent PTSD experience has me questioning whether what has been described as psychic might actually be psychosis/dissociation. Thoughts?

i don’t know if you still respond to this site but i must say the information is profound and true i found this site searching for answer to questions i had to learn to ask myself.as well as searching for questions to the answers i have unlocked through my own experiences.

I try to respond as much as I can. Much of the stuff about psychics is years old at this point, but still searched regularly. These days you will find my blog full of articles about the ongoing battle for legitimacy. And that starts with scientific legitimacy. So I write a lot about science in order to bring people up to speed in that area.

Hi there – I can talk on a related topic. I believe that I was psychic at first but was eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I have written a book about it which you might be interested in called “From Psychic to Psychotic and Beyond” which can be accessed through my website at: alternativeexistence.com

This is a very well written and well sourced article. I think, based on actual research, there is a more subtle link to ‘situational psychosis’ and psychic experience. Now, science has extremely well documented pre-cognition data, and peer reviewed data indicating ‘true psychics’ can affect reality in a testable, verifiable, and repeatable manner.

Fortunately, recent discovery and verification of the boson-higgs particle, that imparts mass to surrounding particles via a quantum field energy, at rates beyond light speed begins to highlight the physics of interaction between conscious energy and the universe surrounding consciousness.

Yes, this is a very complex topic, but a necessary discussion when talking about valid and verifiable psychic experience. Another verifiable psychic experience is existence of plasma orbs, often viewed and documented by numbers of researchers and recorded by video and EM sensors, or strain gages etc.

With this in mind, a discussion of temporary ‘psychosis’ related to psychic experience is easier to grasp. Individuals that experience true psychic phenomena have a tendency to get disoriented, if not solidly grounded in a metaphysical sense. Such an experience can get an individual to question their own sanity, and an inexperienced psychologist with limited knowledge on how to validate psychic versus psychotic episodes can exacerbate the confusion of psychic recognition, and may aid in problem formation by miss prescribing medication to treat the ‘symptom’ versus addressing the cause. This is not a one way street either, on the other hand, a psychotic may at the surface seem quite convincing in appearing like a psychic, but there is a difference, and this article does address this distinction. One of the problems is in the psychic receiver consciousness, are such individuals receiving a psychic message or are they believing their own thoughts are real? This is quite a seeming dilemma until ‘ground truthing’ the actual experience which then fetters out the composite reality from fancy of the mind.

What is good in this psychological exercise (ground truthing the experience), in addition to identifying a psychic versus psychotic episode, is to calm the mind of a truly gifted psychic and subsequently helping them differentiate between a reasonable pre-cognition from an irrational thought or ‘what-if’ thinking resulting in an adrenaline reaction. In this manner a psychologist can reduce symptoms of neurosis, and help a real psychic find relaxed, constructive, and useful outlets for their cognitive gift, one that may help serve society at large.

This discussion I think may help to define the cognitive landscape for distinguishing a psychic experience, while acknowledging that psychosis and other mental illnesses can seemingly co-exist or cross-over into a pre-cognitive environment.

One of the other reasons such testing can be of importance to a psychologist is to not ‘freak out’ when encountering a real psychic phenomena while attempting to help a person who has a psychic gift. For example, I know of one case, in which a psychologist took on a patient who had the seeming power to manifest psychokinesis (PK). However, the patient had little control over that phenomena of sub-consciousness expression, and had an eerie tendency to disassemble objects in a room when stressed. When books started flying off shelves (seemingly by their own energy), and water started splashing over an aquarium, the poor junior psychologist thought (wrongly) they were having a joint hallucination, and sought out a mentor for guidance. Fortunately, the senior psychiatrist had himself seen a few things in his day, so was able to test and verify the PK as an actual psychic phenomena by employing a number of researchers to verify the physical nature of the PK, and without himself jumping to conclusions.

Why write such a diatribe about this article, because in doing research into psychic phenomena, I have encountered an orthodox mindset, in some of more generalized psychological disciplines, that tends to focus’s on institutionalized denial, followed by a regime of treatment protocols that exert considerable energy on a subject’s behavior to conform to standardized social norms, versus testing for validation of the condition, either psychic or psychotic.

In my view constraining consciousness is a form of repression to treat symptoms versus getting to the bottom of the issue, and this hinders healthy recovery of some normal but gifted individuals, and shows a lack of thoughtful support for persons in need of help. Let’s face it, this article quite well points out that persons with various levels of mental illness can function in society, so part of our job is to help people adjust, and that transaction requires a bit of adjustment on our side of the fence as helpers.

I really think you should publish a book on this subject, I for one, would love to add a new authoritative work on this topic.

Hello I am beginning to believe that my brother is having a psychotic break in the wake of psychic abilities. he is coming into early adulthood, 20 to be exact and isn’t coping very well with what he calls the “real world”. My mother is very well known to be a psychic and has many precognitive visions/ dreams as well as being confronted by “spirits” as you call them as soon as she lets her guard down. I have precognitive tendencies as well as, every once in a while, confrontations or interactions with manifestations. I am currently very worried about him. He openly speaks to people who aren’t there and continuously raves about our false worlds and how nobody can see the light as he does. I am really hoping for advice. His perceptions are really putting a strain on our family, and sometimes friends. My husband believes he should be medicated even though I have claimed to see his best friend who had passed visiting him, he has never mentioned medication on my behalf. I would really appreciate any advice that could possibly help deal with this situation. I am truly worried for the safety of my brother.

What you’re describing is typical of schizophrenia. (My uncle has it.) It typically starts showing up in men about the age of your brother. He needs a psychiatrist to evaluate him properly; it’s not something I can do over the internet.

Bear in mind this doesn’t mean that he is living in a fantasy land. Some of what he is experiencing may indeed be another part of our reality, as you were able to verify. Many people have speculated that the veil between the worlds is thinner for schizophrenics.

However, that does him no good if he cannot properly differentiate between these worlds. Coping with the ordinary world is always our first priority, and if he cannot do this, then he needs help. If he does have schizophrenia, the medicine helps a great deal. I am very sensitive to over medicating people, particularly for mental problems, but schizophrenics are really helped in this way.

If you are dead set against this, then you can try psychic healing, which has been clinically shown to be effective in a wide number of areas. But he has to come back again and again for sessions and he may resist this. The other world has great appeal (no responsibility) while the ordinary one can be hard and frustrating (being held accountable). He may not want to give up the bliss.

Craig,
I really appreciate your insight. It’s becoming increasingly difficult for friends and family members to handle what he is going through in a healthy manner. I don’t want to have him medicated to the point of incapacitating his daily functions, so I understand what you are saying. It is truly taxing on the family and it helps to get advice from someone who has a family member struggling with schizophrenia. Thank you very much for the well wishes.

Based on your descriptions, it sounds like medication is a good idea. It’s up to a psychiatrist to get the dosage right. They will want him to be functional, so they’ll be careful. According to other schizophrenics, the voices don’t go away, they just get pushed to the background with meds.

Schizophrenia is a bit like Alzheimers and other debilitating diseases where people can still function. It requires around the clock vigilance, which is far beyond the care that a family can normally provide for one of its members.

Oh, I’m sorry if that seemed out of line. I was only curious of your personal opinion, as someone who has a family member with the same mental dysfunction. Hardly in lieu of psychiatric evaluations and professional treatment.
Again, apologies.

craigweiler

February 19, 2013

No worries. The only answer I can give is: it depends. No two schizophrenics are alike. When they go off the deep end some become totally unmanageable, others not so much. There are some questions which answer themselves.

1. What happens if no one is watching this person?
A. They don’t take care of themselves.
B. Something bad might happen.

2. Can you trust this person with possessions, children, animals?
A. Yes
B. No

If you answered “A” to both of these, then they don’t need institutionalizing. If you answered “B” to both of these then they probably do.

Anonymous

February 21, 2013

Thank you again. It has been a pleasure to learn a bit more about this illness as it is seen by other family members and someone with experience in the field. The few moments of your time has meant a lot to me.
Regards, and well wishes for you and yours in the future.

craigweiler

February 21, 2013

Thanks very much for your kind words. And please remember that my experience with schizophrenia is very limited and I should not be considered to have actual expertise.

Sincerely,
Craig

Anonymous

August 20, 2013

I have a brother who was diagnosed as schizophrenic because he heard voices and was subsequently medicated to his eyeballs since the age of 19 . He is now 53 . However , my father , my eldest brother and myself are considered partially psychic . Funny how when a medium hears voices , he is considered gifted . Yet others hear voices and they are considered schizophrenic depending on if the voices are good or bad . This is a question which has bugged me for years that maybe someone like my brother should have been channeled into the right field instead of being medicated to the hilt so they did not hear voices

David this is a great blog supporting evidence-based approach to psychic phenomena. In that vein I hope you will reconsider your position on medication of schizophrenia. These medications may dampen the ‘symptoms’ so that the person is no longer as much of a ‘problem’ for family and society. However these drugs, besides difficult physical side effects, tend to not allow the person to go through an essential spiritual growth process and in the long run limit recovery. What schizophrenics need are fellow humans who have been through similar experiences who can provide guidance, support and acceptance. Most psychiatrists do not have such insight and will simply prescribe medication. Recent evidence-based critiques of drug use in psychiatry are ‘The Myth of the Chemical Cure’ by Moncrieff and ‘Rethinking Madness’ by Williams.

Look up the Hearing Voice Network (you could also look up Marius Romme who started it). They have a different approach and that one actually Works as opposed to medicine. Its about relating to your voices rather than suppress it. Hope you can find a voice hearing Group nearby :)

Great Article! What is ‘reality’, though? If psychics have schizotypy or whatever name they what to label it, I would argue that psychics are more in tune with the real, Universal ‘reality’ then so called normal people. Normal people are conditioned to accept this man made reality that most people live in while psychics choose not to ‘evolve’ into a ‘artificial, man made reality’.

Non-conformance into a artificial, man made reality is what makes psychics special – they must, or try to, learn early in life to follow their instincts and not accept what others call reality. They intuitively know that is not how it’s suppose to be.

Over my life time, I have been labeled with many psychiatric disorders because I had struggled with being called a nonconformist, always questioning authority. But is communicating with the spiritual world or predicting future events unnatural? I would beg to differ that the majority of the world have it wrong and we psychics are in tune with the Universal Truth – the real reality.

Actually, I agree with you. My experience is the same. And in the article I do state that it’s schizophrenics that have a break from reality, not schizotypals. Schizophrenics endure a personal reality that no one else can relate to. That’s not the same. The reality you speak of is the same as mine. All of us who are like this essentially experience the same reality.

I think I am a psychic I am a upcoming artist and I have just had thoughts about skitzophrenia and googled if it related to psychics I have a very very different childhood and a mind like no other. I honestly am looking for help but do not know where Togo

Hello my names Kelly May or Mr. May. I’ve been diagnosed with schizophrenia also. For about four years I have been communicating with spirits and I believe I can telecommunicate with other individuals @Elizabeth Faraone. I believe your right in that anybody can be psychic I think It really just depends how strong of a believer you are. And as for fear I don’t doubt that as well. Which brings me to my other questions. @Robert this inner critic your talking about is this like the one who puts doubts in my head? Or is it the angry, mean, devil I think of. The one that is trying to be an authoritative being, Controlling my thoughts and telling me when and when I can’t talk to spirits. The one that after reading this article shouldn’t be a problem any more because I AM IN CONTROL!

A couple interesting things have been happening to me, one of them has been happening since the schizophrenia started. That is when a spirit is in my body and they are sad,happy,or made a prediction about what I might be getting into in the weeks or months ahead. I feel tears running down my face sometimes I even see glimpses of the tear running down my face.

I had a question for all of you. What’s going on with me? I’m kind of afraid to go to sleep in my own bed. When ever I do I’ll wake up but I’ll slip into a semi unconscious. State, Like I’m switching from the spirit world to the other world that we know of today. When I’m in that limbo state “demons” and other spirits will torture me. Do things to me, touch me, shove there finger up my ass. Make my legs gravitate(although in reality there not) but it all feels so real to me, like as real as it gets. This last time I wasn’t even fully asleep, I was semi conscious but it was hard for me to move. What should I do about my current situation.

I called a psychic tonight to ask my one free question. My question was how can I truly stand up for my beliefs. The answer she gave me all made since and it was just so simple, something that I lived for a part of my life, when I was living in hell and walking through the valleys of the shadow of death. The answer was just have faith in god, he will give you the strength to stand up for what you believe in. He’s my main man one love god! I also believe in the universe though and that really interests me. I believe that I am dark matter, something that keeps galaxy’s and super galaxy’s together, something unexplainable, unique, like dark matter I have a gravitational pull that allows me to connect past loved ones to people walking in our world which is also theirs. I say I’m dark matter because I’d rather not be a black hole. Yea with out them galaxies wouldn’t form, but with them there destroying galaxies and draining everything they can out of all their resources, we can relate to people on our earth the same way. The universe wouldn’t be hear if it wasn’t for a slight balance of good and evil just like earth, but just like the big bang all the tiny particles of matter along came anti matter that could have destroyed the universe before it began. Like the life I know to be true, good always prevails.

Given the tone of your post, you are angry. Actually, where I am, it’s safe and okay to be angry. Keep in mind; however, that words (tone) has it’s own ‘life’ and can affect and infect those nearby like a bull in a china house or better, shooting bullets with no target (with innocent bystanders). I’m sure you don’t intend to deliberately hurt anyone. As, I am sure those nearby you, don’t intend to hurt you. By that, I mean, given that you are psychic you ‘pick-up’ ‘E(nergy)MOTIONS from others who live nearby, driving past you, in the supermarket…perhaps even across the world …

This article helped me by solidifying that ‘i am different; yet, very much the same’…I always have been. Big pill to swallow at 50 years of age. Thank gawd my children do not have to live with bigotry or fear because their mother has accepted a new ‘reality’ Fear is what consumed my father who died in a VA Clinic with a diagnosis of schzo…….live with that all your life. Then experience your own psychosis. I refused the drugs….:)

Chakra centers are ‘tools’ that most can understand; but we can use any tool such as the writer here uses a pen while chilling out. Doesn’t require meditation per say as much as a quiet mind.

And that brings me to mindfulness. Whenever someone punches at one of my ‘power centers’ I sense that immediately and feel compelled to respond. Or, at the very least protect my ‘personal power’…bottom line is, I knowingly and deliberately choose not to be around ‘toxic people’……I simply don’t entertain them. free will…:)

What a load of baloney. You guys aren’t scientists. I was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and I am very psychic. Both I and my mom dreamt about 9/11 the night before it happened. We’ve always been psychic in my family.

Schizophrenia is a chemical disruption of the brain, NOT fear. Why don’t you get over your bigotry and fear towards the mentally ill? It’s not my fault, and it isn’t the fault of millions of others. You fear what you just don’t understand at all. Major fail.

I think everyone has the ability to be psychic, but the choice is made not to be because people don’t want to deal with reality. I suspect intense anger and intense fear may be the root cause of schizophrenia, causing a complete disconnect with the truth. But we must recognize that we live in a society that is not well connected to the truth. Who was it that said, “It is not a measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” When wars no longer exist, poverty no longer exists, oppression of certain groups of people no longer exists, we’ll be on our way to a healthy society. Turn those psychic powers on, say “no” to corrupt authority, and drop your fears. Then you will be able to love.

I am psychic and have had psychotic breaks from reality. It is usually due to not being grounded enough or from not taking a break from being “on” all the time. I’ve related to the chakra system because it’s an easy system to understand. Psychic abilities employ the upper centres (throat, third eye, crown), but without a grounded root chakra and a solid solar plexus (3rd) chakra, your ability to “come down” as well as your sense of self-boundaries will not be sufficient to prevent you from being wide open.

Your analysis about internalized authority vs. internalized self-empowerment is EXCELLENT. With an inner critic running wild, you will not have your own internal support network in check and you will in turn be susceptible to over-extension or other harm. It’s a loophole that needs closing. With chakra work, I have come to understand that the inner critic resides in the 3rd chakra. It’s an emotional/causal level event. The best way to kill the inner critic is to confront it and ask it what it wants; then, when it is gone, replacing it with love and gratitude is key. The only real “authority” is Source energy, the Divine, God, the Universe, or whatever you want to call it; and that authority will never criticize you or try to bully you. It is pure love. If you treat your work as a channeled experience, it removes personal ego from the equation and thus all of the ego hangups like the inner critic.

However, some people were lucky enough to be born and raised as self-empowered individuals, or perhaps even rebels. No outside power can really hurt those ones.

I am diagnosed with Schizophrenia and for me personally I can tell you I have have had an apparent “psychic experience” that preceded and intertwined with my psychosis. For example, I just “knew” that my cousin who was overseas was in pain and later that night i talked to his brother and he said he was in the hospital with severe headaches! Now I dont know if one can generalize this to schizophrenics but to me I may feel there is some sort of connection.

Among parapsychologists, it’s felt that people who are schizophrenic have their minds in an in between state that may be receptive to psychic information. Beyond that, the connection isn’t very clear. Clearly, you had a psychic experience. No denying that.

when psychics use their abilities too much, especially as teenagers, it can cause psychosis. During that period of time, they’re very dangerious to themselves and others. It can happen if they see something that their minds can’t handle. (ex: murder) constant scientific testing, or any testing in general, can send them into psychosis. it can also cause really sever headaches, fatigue and a decline in health.

Wow! I was having a problem with EMF and was diagnosed with schizophenia. I can accually use my lap top computer now that I am taking seroquel XR. I was also able to feel camaras in the mall because of the EMF they were putting out. It was hurting my head to go into places that had these careras. I also had the so called ability to feel the presence of ghost. I am doing better now that I am on this medicine. Never in my mind did I ever think I had a brain disease. I look back in my family and can see that my family has had the same problems in their beliefs system that I have had. I am feeling more blessed than I have ever felt before because of this new knowledge of what’s really a blessing. Wow, for such a long time I thought my abilitys where a gift. Hmmm, the real blessing is the medication to help me deal with reality…

Some people are sensitive to EMF. I can understand a diagnosis of schizophrenia, but this sensitivity is virtually unknown. There have been studies in this area, which I covered in one of my blog articles:

It somewhat helps. I am still juggling the dosage of seroquel because I can’t balance the required amount I need to take. The side effects are having to live with a unwanted numb feeling, a heavy feeling in the head, and a numb feeling in my my knee’s. Its not a good feeling of being off balanced. I can’t began to tell you the fear that comes with not knowing if I can find the right medication so I can get back to my job. I’m planning to see a the head doctor to get another opinion on me havinread up read upg schizophrenia. I can really tell you where the camera’s are in a shopping mall. The ones that are on of course. The emf really knocks me over. What gets me is that I wasn’t asked to prove it or tested for my ability to sense emf. I was just told that I’m sick and should take this medicine. I was given a pamphlet and was told to read up and call this number for counseling. I will keep you informed of my travels.

Have you looked at people experiencing higher states of consciousness? I think this would give you a model to explore creativity and human ability that starts with criteria for healthy functioning. For example, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi offered such a model, with techniques for expanding creativity while eliminating fear. He used a different language and explained how people can identify and nourish higher states. Balance is key. Group practice of meditation and communities can provide a protective environment for people with these abilities.

Hi Carla,
Thank you for your question. You bring up some very good points, but they are outside the scope of this blog. I am focused on providing background information, not a how-to manual. I have the utmost respect for TM, and I am aware of, and interested in the Maharishi Effect, but the actual teaching is an area where I defer to the expertise of others.

Hi Monica,
Most of the articles I find lately start with The Huffington Post living section. Sometimes they have the article, sometimes it’s a link from the article.

This blog is on WordPress, a non profit organization that hosts blogs. It is amazingly easy to change the appearance of a blog and I’ve been waiting for awhile for one that I liked better than my previous one.

I know what you mean about not tagging things as irrelevant–I love writing poetry, and ninety percent of it focuses on some random detail of the landscape I found particularly beautiful. Why? Because my brain notices it. And the stuff about authority makes complete sense–even groups like CAD (Civil Air Patrol) have a machine-like quality to their thinking, making a single person’s ego nonexistent, so the military would be worse.

So, yeah…this is genius. Where the heck do you FIND this stuff? It’s great! (And I’m not sure how you got your blog’s background to look like this, but that’s pretty cool. Just a little ADHD moment there. :p